Business

Kindelspire: Of cruise lines, airlines and algorithms

Good news: Carnival Cruise Lines is having a fabulous three-day-only sale!

Caribbean cruises starting at just $229! Such a deal.

Sounds like fun if you can get the picture of white smoke billowing out from the top of Carnival Triumph out of your brain.

"The sanitation has been quite a big problem," one passenger said after the ship finally docked and the passengers had survived not only their ordeal at sea but the 5½ hours it took to get off the ship. (By the time it had hit port, only one elevator was working.)

"Our cabin has been dark at night," the man continued, in obvious need of a shave and a hot shower.

"It was magic today that the restroom worked," another woman said.

"(There were) people sleeping on their mattresses between the elevator and the stairway, so we met a lot of people that way," another woman said, trying to put a positive spin on the situation. She credited the Triumph's crew and "the human race."

What's a little engine room fire between new-found friends, anyway?

Speaking of fires, you've heard about the problems with Boeing's Dreamliner -- specifically the problems with its lithium-ion batteries catching fire. But did you notice the story earlier this month that the Federal Aviation Administration had allowed Boeing to "self-certify" that the aircraft was safe? Apparently the FAA has been moving toward self-certification of new aircraft for several years. And what a good idea that is.

In the case of Carnival, why weren't there boats and helicopters to evacuate the passengers? Well, it is a publicly held company, and I guess that would hurt earnings.

Who at the FAA thought it was a good idea to allow Boeing to "self-certify" the safety of its planes?

Consumers drive two-thirds of this country's economy, so where's the consumer push-back when things like this happen? Anybody else sick of the profit motive that seems to dominate life in America today? If we're going to let one of the seven deadly sins drive our very existence, then surely we can do better than greed.

We consumers shouldn't be afraid to have high expectations for those we choose to give our money to. Too often, we shrug our shoulders and accept what we're given rather than demanding what we want. When appropriate, we screwees shouldn't hesitate to punish the screwers. That no Wall Street bankers went to jail for causing the collapse of our economy is a crime in itself.

I guess I'm wondering if our brains have gone soft. (Given the popularity of reality TV, maybe that horse has already left the barn ...)

I started thinking about all of this recently as I picked up a Wired magazine for the first time in several weeks. Sometimes Wired gets a little tired. For all the things I like about the magazine -- learning about 3D printers, for example -- there's stuff I'm barely able to put up with, such as the monthly reviews of mostly useless and always overpriced consumer stuff.

And then I read things that just make me shake my head and make me wonder where common sense has gone. The issue of Wired -- or even the story -- where the following came from isn't important. It's just the fact that someone wrote it and, worse, that some others will surely believe it:

"In an earlier era, a regional bank might have had an advantage in making loans to local businesses on the basis of its intimate, on-the-ground knowledge of borrowers and the community. But nowadays, computer credit-scoring models calibrated on the outcomes of millions of prior loans can predict better than any human being whether a loan will be repaid."

And I'm sure the algorithms of cruise lines and airlines also indicated that everything was just fine.

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

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